2018 Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost Share Grant Program | USDA FS UCF 01 2018

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA FS UCF 01 2018

The 2018 Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost Share Grant Program is a discretionary U.S. Forest Service grant, guided by the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council (NUCFAC), to fund innovative, research-driven projects that advance the National Ten Year Urban Forestry Action Plan (2016-2026). For this round, the program is focused on a single priority research need area: "Planting, Inventory, and Analysis for Forest and Environmental Health." The overall aim is to support program development, applied study, and collaboration that helps communities better understand, measure, and manage urban forests so they can deliver measurable health, energy, ecological, and economic benefits, while also improving human well-being. A central expectation is that funded work leads to meaningful results that can be replicated across the country rather than producing solutions that only fit one city or one state.

This opportunity is designed for proposals that push beyond standard urban forestry practices by improving how communities assess tree canopy, inventory trees, evaluate forest condition, and apply that information to real management decisions. The rationale is straightforward: communities cannot fully capture the benefits of urban trees if they do not have healthy trees, and they cannot maintain healthy trees without a clear picture of the current urban forest and the threats it faces. While canopy assessments and inventories are already widely used, NUCFAC is explicitly looking for the next generation of methods, protocols, and decision-support approaches that expand on earlier research and make monitoring and management more effective, efficient, and science-based.

Applicants are asked to align their projects with either "Momentum" or "Emergent" objectives within the category. Momentum objectives emphasize strengthening and scaling what is already underway, such as improving strategies and protocols to measure and monitor urban forest extent and canopy condition at local and national scales (including approaches like Urban FIA and UTC), with attention to cost and data-collection efficiency. They also include continued original research that advances assessment models and tools such as LIDAR, hyperspectral remote sensing, and platforms like i-Tree; expanding knowledge about tree selection, placement, and growth factors (including soils) to improve resilience in the face of disasters, pests, disease, and invasive species; and producing evidence that supports standards and best practices for long-term urban forest sustainability.

Emergent objectives focus on newer or less mature needs where the field is still building capacity. Examples include expanding diagnostics for urban forest health and threats and creating practical protocols for early detection along with routine, systematic assessment and reporting. They also include developing models and decision tools that help planners and managers integrate trees and other green infrastructure with gray infrastructure (for example, coordinating urban forests with stormwater installations, roofs, and parking lots). Another emergent priority is expanding early implementations of Urban FIA to strengthen forest condition assessment and monitoring in urban contexts. Across these themes, the program signals strong interest in work that treats the urban forest as a living, changing system that must be integrated into broader urban planning, infrastructure, and risk-management decisions.

A major requirement is a strong and genuinely effective technology transfer plan. Proposals are expected to include more than passive dissemination like posting a report online, presenting only at professional conferences, or distributing materials on CDs. Review teams want an innovative, public-facing approach to transferring results into practice, including clear identification of the stakeholder groups who will use the products. In practical terms, successful proposals typically commit to making results accessible and usable for communities, practitioners, and decision-makers, not just documented for academic audiences.

Eligibility is broad but limited to non-federal entities. Eligible applicants include U.S. state, county, and city or township governments; special districts; independent school districts; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; public and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations; and nonprofits (with or without 501(c)(3) status). Applicants must operate within the United States or its territories. Federal agency collaboration is encouraged, but federal agencies cannot receive grant funds and cannot be counted as match. Individuals and private land are not eligible, and proposals must address national, multi-state, or multi-tribal urban forestry issues rather than single-community efforts.

Several project types are explicitly not eligible. The program does not fund local-only or single-state urban forestry projects, straightforward tree-planting projects, or capital improvements to property (regardless of ownership). The intent is to avoid funding activities that are important but primarily local in impact, and instead prioritize work that generates widely applicable methods, tools, data approaches, or standards that can be used across many communities.

From an administrative standpoint, the funding instrument is a grant under CFDA 10.675, with an award ceiling of $200,000 and an expected total of about 10 awards. Proposals were due May 24, 2017 for this 2018 program cycle (as listed in the source record), and applicants are advised to plan timelines carefully because proposal review commonly takes six to nine months after submission. Applicants should reflect this review period in the project start and end dates entered on the SF-424. The guidance also stresses that each grant category must be treated as separate; applicants should not combine multiple categories into one proposal, and doing so can lead to disqualification. If multiple categories exist in a given year, applicants may submit separate proposals for each category. If applicants encounter technical issues with Grants.gov, the announcement provides an alternative submission option by email to nucfacucfproposals@fs.fed.us.

In short, this grant opportunity targets high-impact, multi-jurisdictional urban forestry research and applied development focused on planting strategies, inventory and monitoring, and analytic tools that improve urban forest health and the benefits it provides. The program places special value on innovation, strong cross-sector collaboration (including partners not traditionally involved in urban forestry), and practical technology transfer that helps communities actually use the results at scale.

• The Forest Service in the community development, disaster prevention and relief, education, natural resources, regional development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "2018 Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost Share Grant Program" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.675.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-02-23.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-05-24. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $200,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 10 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for USDA FS UCF 01 2018

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